U.S. Army Intelligence is concerned that terrorists might use the micro-blogging platform Twitter to coordinate attacks, according to a draft report compiled by the 304th Military Intelligence Battalion. Oh no — batten the hatches!

U.S. Army Intelligence is concerned that terrorists might use the micro-blogging platform Twitter to coordinate attacks, according to a draft report (pdf) compiled by the 304th Military Intelligence Battalion. As Noah Schactman first blogged at Wired, the military has long been concerned that Al Qaeda and its ilk could “take advantage of commercial hardware and software to help plan and carry out strikes.” Wouldn’t it be ironic–in the Alanis Morissette sense of the word–if just as these, um, twerrorists were tweeting, the network went down, perhaps during a Steve Jobs keynote?

2.) The twerrorist picks the perfect moment for a bomb blast, which his collaborator detonates with the use of a cell phone.

3.) A twerrorist follows military personnel on Twitter, “and begins to elicit information,” that could be “used for a targeting package,” such as “identity theft, hacking and/or physical.”

Now this Dr. Strangelovian report identifies only a few common technologies and products our enemies could deploy to plot our destruction. Why, there are also GPS devices, email, text messaging, cell phones, Skype, the World Wide Web, Microsoft and Apple operating systems, Google Search, Maps and Earth, Microsoft Word, Babelfish (to translate the infidel’s language), newspaper classifieds, Craigslist, the U.S. postal system, Fedex, UPS, DHL, guns, nails, propane tanks, fertilizer, ammonia, planes, trains, automobiles, taxis, and while we’re at it oxygen: terrorists have to breathe, too, don’t they? I just hope Homeland Security doesn’t get involved. Can you imagine if the agency applied airport security methods to, say, text messaging? You’d have to stand in line for an hour to have your 17-word digital haiku checked, scanned, and stripped searched before it could be sent on its merry way.

The report does contain some laugh-out moments. My favorite: “Twitter has also become a social activism tool for socialists, human rights groups, communists, vegetarians, anarchists, religious communities, atheists, political enthusiasts, hacktivists and others to communicate with each other and to send messages to broader audiences.”

advertisement

Good thing American intelligence is keeping tabs on those godless vegan human rights hacktivists. It’s no telling how much damage they could do the social fabric of our country. Let’s hope they don’t try to add fluoride to our drinking water.

advertisement

advertisement

advertisement

About the author

Adam L. Penenberg is a journalism professor at New York University and author of several books